Halifax Panthers boss discusses game plan for Featherstone Rovers clash

Fax secured a third-place finish in the Championship last Monday night with a 32-4 victory over the Widnes Vikings.

The result was not only Halifax’s first away win at Widnes since 2010, but it also ensured a home play-off quarter-final clash for the West Yorkshire outfit.

With Featherstone finishing their campaign in second, it puts them on a direct collision course with Fax in the play-off picture should the Panthers progress to the semi-final.

With that in mind, there is certainly a lot of added interest around Sunday’s fixture, with Grix hoping to test Brian McDermott’s side.

“I think when we played Fev before, we played a bit submissive, and allowed them to dictate to us a lot.” Grix told Premier Sports.

“We didn’t really play our brand or style of rugby. If you go and try to punch it our through the middle against a big Fev team and don’t stretch them, you’re going to struggle. I think we’ll learn from that and try to challenge them plenty and see where that gets us.”

Featherstone have won all of the previous seven meetings with Halifax, winning their most recent encounter 22-12 at home. Fax, on the other hand, last picked up a win over Fev back in July 2018 at The Shay.

Grix believes staying in the match for as long as possible will be key. He said: “At times out goalline defence hasn’t been good enough. Although it wasn’t perfect [against Widnes], I thought we showed the level of desperation you need on your goalline.

“It’s a funny game at times but our approach really is to try and play the long game. You might get to minute 60 and if you’re in the game, you’re going to have a bit of a say in it.

“We’ve got some quality attacking players who can score tries from all over the field. If we can get our defence to where it needs to be, we certainly have a chance in most games.”

Halifax put six tries past Widnes in a productive night on Merseyside despite Grix making a number of changes to his side. Grix added: “We defended quite a bit more than I would’ve liked but in the end we came out with quite a decent result.”